Intellivore
by Dark Aegis
Summary: Sometimes, evil never truly dies. COMPLETED
1. Prologue

**Title:** Intellivore  
**Author:** Gillian Taylor  
**Rating:** R  
**Characters:** Ninth Doctor, Rose, Jack  
**Summary:** Sometimes, evil never truly dies.  
**Spoilers:** This is an AU story that branches off sometime after Jack joins the TARDIS crew. Bad Wolf and PotW never happened.  
**Disclaimer:** Don't own them. I just like playing with them.

**Author's Notes:** Well, before we get into the insanity that follows, this story was originally based in the Star Wars universe. After I got sucked into the wonderful world of Doctor Who I thought that this story could use a re-write to star our favorite TARDIS explorers. There are plenty of similarities to the original Intellivore, but over the course of writing this it has developed a life of its own. I would like to thank my wonderful beta **nnwest** for all her help and encouragement.

"Intellivore"  
by Gillian Taylor

_Prologue: What Came Before..._

It had been there for a long time. So long, in fact, that it had seemed like it had been eons since it had last seen a warm body in its metallic tomb. But all of that would change.

With the hunger growing deep within its form, it sent out the repeating distress signal.

The Talween had returned.

Two Millennia Ago  
Daan Explorer Ship Talween

Jistera Celaani, sometime Captain, sometime Counselor, and sometime Friend to her crew of eight was tired. It had been months since she had seen anyone outside of her cruiser crew and she ached to see a new face. But, between the Core Worlds of the Daan Empire and the newly explored 'Outer Reaches' and at the achingly slow pace of hyperspeed, there was little chance of meeting anyone this far out. She rubbed the bridge of her nose absently as she examined the thin layer of dust that coated the bridge instruments. It was the cause for much bemoaning on Deen's part. The man was convinced that any speck of dust on 'his' ship was a personal insult to his honor.

She laughed at the thought of his face when he saw the Bridge. He would probably end up with an ulcer...

BEEP

Jistera jerked out of her thoughts with the suddenness of a laser bolt. Behind her, Deen Ula and Fitz 'Buddy' Hitcets hurried onto the cramped Bridge. 

"What is it?" Deen asked, taking his position at the small engineering console.

"A transmission," Fitz responded, looking at his master situation monitor, "Unlike any I have ever seen before." Coming from Fitz, or Buddy as he liked to be called, that was saying a lot. He could boast of being to every world in the Daan Empire even given his youthful appearance.

"Is it understandable?" Jistera asked.

"It seems to be some sort of mayday..."

"Drop us out of hyperspace, I want to check it out."

"But Jistera, what if it's hostile," Deen asked, a small shudder evident in his voice. He had heard the ghost stories revolving around this particular section of space and had no wish to have something happen to him here, on this ship, this far from home.

"We'll take it as we get there. I just want to see if we can help..." she explained.

With a sigh, Deen nodded, knowing that once she made up her mind there was no going back. The Talween slowed out of hyperspace to emerge thirty klicks from the bow of the strangest looking vessel that Jistera had ever seen. It was oblong and covered with a green tinged material that she had never seen before. But it was ultimately alien. There were curves that should have been corners had she designed the vessel and mounds where she would have put nothing at all.

"What the hell is that?" Fitz whispered in a mixture of awe and a primal fear of anything different.

"Open a channel to it. We could help it..."

Fitz looked at Deen and Jistera, indecision etched across the planes and angles of his face. He turned the knob to open the channel.  
Daan Cruiser Prostera  
One Year Later

"Incoming transmission," Justin Celaani reported to the Captain of the Prostera. He could only hope that this mission would reveal what happened to his beloved sister...

The voice was scratchy, fear permeating its tone to the point where it raised the small hairs at the napes of the bridge crew's necks. 

"Talween...Deen...Jistera...They're dead. All of them. It killed them. Oh God...what...please, get out of here! Don't stay here! Go! Oh GOD!" The voice rose into a bone-chilling scream before the transmission was suddenly cut off.

The crew of the Prostera looked at each other in shared fear and uneasiness. They knew that something horrible had happened to the Talween...just as they knew that no one on that ship would ever come home...


	2. Chapter 1

_Chapter One: What's a Nice Girl..._

Present Day  
Centauris

"Give me an ale, you slimy pile of worm ridden filth!" a large Cheldonian bellowed from the other side of the long bar. Sometimes, well, most of the time, she wished that she could just pull her blaster – a gift from Jack - and shoot those patrons that were too loud for their own well-being.

She had been working in 'Slimy's' for the past week and a half, and she had hated every minute of it. Just because she came into Centauris with a beat up ship thanks to a group of pirates, she had to lay low and get cash. She wiped the bar one more time before being grabbed from behind by Slimy himself, a ten armed monster of a being with a temper to match his appearance.

"Ssssserve him!" Slimy growled into her ear, "Or fire you I will for ssssslacking on the job."

Rose Tyler bit back the sharp retort that was her first thought. 'Yes master,' she thought bitterly, bringing an ale to the Cheldonian. If Slimy was a pleasure to work for, this forced labor would not have been so bad. Instead, it was a living hell.

Rose turned away from the Cheldonian, and headed back to the center of the bar. She was grabbed by a tall excuse for a human male, and she forced herself not to put her fist through his too-perfect nose.

"Hey honey, want to have some fun?" the man asked her with a slight slur. Rose shook off his hand and snapped, "Not with the likes of you, I don't."

"Too bad, once you've had me, there's NO going back." He leered at her, his grin appreciative as he took in her slender form.

Rose shook her head. She had heard more pick up lines, innuendo, and blatant sexual comments in Slimy's than she had heard over the past 25 years of her life – and that included the two years wherein she had lived inside the TARDIS with Jack and the Doctor. Grumbling under her breath, she continued down the bar's length until she was pulled to a stop by a familiar voice.

"One pint," the rich tone was as familiar as it was the day that he had left. She closed her eyes for a moment against the all too familiar sting of tears. She should have known three years ago that they could have never stayed together. He was a Time Lord, the last of his kind, and she was nothing more than a silly little ape with delusions that their mixed up relationship could work. He belonged to space and time while she...she belonged to Earth. He had made that perfectly clear when he had shoved her out of the TARDIS doors.

Rose poured the requested drink and carefully made sure that her hands did not shake enough to spill. "One pint...Doctor," she said, placing the glass on the bartop.

The Doctor started as he stared into a face from his past. He had rationalized that he had been protecting her from the dangerous life that he led but now he recognized that it had been fear. He cared for her too much to lose her and every moment that they had stepped through the double doors to his TARDIS he had wondered if that would be the time she would die. That fear had led him to force her out of the TARDIS doors, but he was not surprised to find that she had found her way back to the stars. His Rose was an adventurer at heart, much like he was. "Rose," her name was an exhale of breath from shocked lungs, "How have you been?"

"How do you think I've been, Doctor?" she said harshly. All of the despair, the fear, and the anger that she had felt over the course of the past several years rolled to the forefront of her mind, "Do you have ANY idea, you bastard, of what you did to me? You left me three years ago. You left me!"

He winced at her tone, "Rose..."

"NO. Don't you dare use that tone. Drink your damn pint, Doctor, and go to hell," she snapped at him, but beneath the words even the Doctor could see the pain was still there.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor began, knowing that even to his own ears the words sounded false. Was he sorry for protecting her? No. Was he sorry for leaving her? Even he had to admit that he was - every waking moment of every day, "I wanted to protect you..."

"Protect me? Protect me! By leaving me behind, you thought you were protecting me?" She was astonished, but on one hand she could see the twisted logic that had led him to that conclusion. Rose knew that he felt the desire to test his companions to see if they would do exactly what he expected by leaving him. However, she suspected that even he had no idea of the lengths she had been (and still was) willing to go for him and with him. "Getting too domestic, were we?" she used his turn of phrase as a weapon, and she could see it hit its mark by the noticeable pain in his eyes.

"No, no it wasn't that," the Doctor spread his hands beseechingly, "I didn't want you to get hurt."

"And your leaving wouldn't hurt? Doctor, you are a complete idiot," Rose sighed.

He was inclined to believe her, and he said so. However, before she could respond a large Raxacoricofallapatorian pushed up to the bar, shoving the Doctor aside so it could lean towards Rose.

"Where is it, little human?"

"Where is what?" she asked, pretending not to understand.

"The Fil-fot Orb –you will give it to me now," the large being replied.

She swallowed nervously and stole a glance at the Doctor and his only expression was one of intense curiosity rather than the one of raging disbelief and perhaps anger that she was expecting. "Not here. Not now, Ral-fot" she whispered to the Raxacoricofallapatorian, studiously avoiding meeting the Doctor's eyes, "Tonight, 2100. Eastside docking berth 92. Ral-fot, Doctor." With those words, she turned and lost herself into the crowd of people gathered at the bar and served drinks again.


	3. Chapter 2

_Chapter Two: When the Past Haunts the Present_

The Doctor walked into the TARDIS' control room and Jack's eyes sharpened immediately at the rather downcast expression on his friend's face. Before he could ask what was wrong, the Doctor spoke, "She's here."

He did not have to ask what "she" he was talking about. Three months ago, the Doctor had been stupid – and Jack had told him so many times before – and now she was back. While he knew they could never really return to the way they were before, he had his hopes that this time things could be worked out. Jack closed his eyes and remembered...

----  
_  
The three time travelers collapsed onto the floor of the TARDIS control room in a fit of laughter, or, rather, two of them were laughing and one was brooding. It was strange to believe that escaping certain death had become commonplace, but it had. Life had become a sequence of tea in the morning, a death-defying escapade by lunch, and a comfortable dinner in the TARDIS' kitchen. Jack would not trade this life for anything else, especially since he had the Doctor and Rose. He grinned widely as he reached over to tickle Rose, her delighted squeals of laughter and protests only encouraged him. However, Jack missed the Doctor's expression as he tickled Rose. He missed the sadness and the fear that darted across the Time Lord's face as he watched Rose fight back against Jack's questing fingers._

"JACK!" Rose laughed, "STOP IT!"

"You didn't say the word!" Jack grinned, continuing to tickle her side.

"Uncle! Uncle!" Rose replied.

"Nope, not it," Jack turned his attention to her foot – which he knew was another ticklish spot from the last time they had watched a movie together. 

"Rose," the Doctor said suddenly, and Jack noticed that his voice sounded strange – as if he were desperately holding in some deep emotion, "I'm taking you home."

That caused Jack's hands to still and for Rose to turn and look at him curiously, "It's not my Mum's birthday until next week, Doctor. Fancying some chips?"

"I'm taking you home," he repeated, and his expression was masked as he stood and walked to the console.

"What are you saying?" she asked, and her voice broke slightly as she stared at the leather clad Doctor's back.

"I'm taking you home. I thought that would be obvious to your tiny ape mind," the Doctor replied, his voice sounding suddenly harsh in the control room.

"Doctor, don't be an idiot," Jack said, standing and walking over to the console, "Why are you taking Rose home?"

"She doesn't belong here with us – it isn't safe."

"Not safe! I don't believe you, Doctor! After all I've seen, you want to dump me on Earth like some forgotten plaything? I'm not having it," Rose folded her arms in front of her and glared at the Doctor.

"You," the Doctor said as he activated the console, "Don't have a choice in the matter."

"Of course I do! Doctor, I can't stay on Earth now. Not after this, not after you. Please, don't leave me," Rose's voice broke and she silently damned herself for it.

The Doctor remained stubbornly silent as the familiar wheezing groan of the time travel machine echoed through the control room.

"I won't let you do this, Doctor," Jack said, "You're making a mistake."

"I won't see her hurt!" the Doctor replied, and Jack could suddenly see the reason for all that he was doing in his eyes. The Doctor was in love – and it terrified him.

"And this won't hurt her?" Jack asked, for the moment ignoring the trembling girl in the room to meet the Doctor's anguished gaze.

"She'll be alive. That's all that matters," the Doctor said and the TARDIS rumbled to a stop. He walked to Rose and grabbed her arm, steering her to the doorway, "You'll thank me for this later," he said, but even Rose could hear the hurt in his voice.

"Doctor, please," she swallowed nervously as he opened the doors to reveal the familiar flats of what had once been her home, "I belong here, with you."

"Not anymore," the Doctor said, and pushed.

Startled, Rose fell to the concrete and behind her she could hear Jack's astonished shout of "DOCTOR!" before the TARDIS began to disappear. Rose Tyler was alone.

-----

"Well, where is she? Why didn't you bring her home?" Jack peppered the Doctor with questions, and each time he could see the Doctor's wince.

"She's working at a bar called Slimey's. And...she wouldn't want to come home. Not after what I did to her," the Doctor looked at some phantom point over Jack's shoulder to hide the hurt in his eyes.

"I can't say I blame her," Jack said, and he felt a little guilty at the noticeable flicker of pain in the Doctor's expression, "But she's here. You're here. Maybe we can fix this."

"You've been trying to do so for the past three months, Jack, what makes you think that this time you'll be successful?"

"Because," the former Time Agent said as he stepped forward and grabbed the Doctor's chin to force him to look into his eyes, "I'm sick and tired of seeing you like this. You wanted to protect her, right? You didn't want to see her hurt? Well, you made a mistake, Doctor, and you're going to have to face up to it. If you don't, you're going to end up moping around in the TARDIS like you have been for the past three months for the rest of your life. I want the old Doctor back. The one who was in love with Rose and didn't care what might happen in the future because for the moment he had her and he had me and all was right in the universe. I want him back. And I want her back," Jack released the Doctor's chin and turned away, for the moment not caring if the Doctor decided that he had crossed the invisible line of excusable and non-excusable and kicked him out of the TARDIS.

"Oh, Jack, what have I done?" the Doctor whispered, "I think I lost her."

"Then we'll find her again, Doctor," Jack said, his voice infinitely gentle, "Come on, we need to find her." He mentally added, '...and then we need to lock the two of you into a room until all of this is sorted out.'


	4. Chapter 3

_Chapter Three: Homecoming_

Eastside Docking  
Berth 92  
2050 Hours

A chill wind blew through the docks, lifting a small piece of litter and twirling it as if it were a child's toy. Rose wrapped her cloak tighter around her slender form, the only protection that she had against the icy fingers of the breeze. The package was hidden nearby, where only she would be certain to find it. Over the past three years, since hitching a ride with a Mixirian couple who had been vacationing on Earth, she had learned all too well what the seedy underworld was like on dozens of different planets. She had not realized how difficult it was to survive on her own while traveling the universe; Rose had grown up in that time, done some things she wasn't proud of, and yet others that she reminded herself of every time that the depression grew to be too much to handle.

She had saved a planet once, much in the same way she, the Doctor, and Jack had all those years ago. Rose had saved children on dozens of worlds from the hands of slavers while on other planets she had stolen priceless artifacts to pay for her journeys through space. She had been searching for all those years – searching for hints of a blue police box and the Doctor on dozens of worlds in the hopes that she might find him again. Ral-fot Fel Fotch Pasameer-Lon Falleen had offered to pay her enough to continue her quest if she would steal the Fil-fot Orb from the ruling family of his home planet. While she had done so, Ral-fot owed her money for what he put her through, not to mention the damage incurred to her ship getting his package.

Her sharp ears picked up a slight scuffle behind her and she spun, pulling her blaster in one smooth movement. But there was nothing there.

_CLICK_

The cold metal of a blaster pressed into her cheek and she froze, silently damning herself for not paying more attention to her surroundings when she had turned towards the sound. It was an old trick that she should have known.

"Drop it," Ral-fot hissed into her ear and she complied with a mental groan. "Kick it away." She kicked it towards a stack of crates.

"Now, you will tell me where the Orb is, tiny little human. Or I might get the urge to play," Ral-fot's sharp claws drifted down her cheek in a mocking parody of a lover's caress. Rose suppressed a shudder.

"No," Rose responded, and immediately grimaced as the Ral-fot pressed the blaster harder against her cheek.

"I can smell your fear, little human. The scent of adrenaline coursing through your system is intoxicating. You will tell me, or you will die."

"Go ahead," she smiled a secretive smile, "And you'll never find the Orb."

Ral-fot growled at her response, knowing that she was right. She was an annoying woman and he would take pleasure in killing her once he got his Orb. She had out lived her usefulness, "Tell!"

Rose took her life in her hands and remained silent.

"Bitch!" the Raxacoricofallapatorian shook her violently, his hands leaving painful reminders of their large claws.

"I suggest you release her," a cold voice spoke from near the crates, "Before I decide to do the universe a favor and shoot you."

Rose was about ready to faint from relief. Jack Harkness, sonic blaster firmly aimed at Ral-fot's head, stepped into the light cast by the glowrod above the docking berth doors.

Ral-fot growled, "I will kill her." The blaster moved a fraction of an inch from her cheek and in that instant of almost relaxation, Rose made her move.

She dropped towards the floor and brought an arm up to sweep the blaster from her head. Ral-fot squeezed the trigger, but the brilliant red beam blasted harmlessly several inches from her head. Jack took advantage of Ral-fot's distraction to take a shot at him, which was deflected by someone that he didn't know was even there. The blaster clattered onto the floor as a fist slammed into his face.

Gritle, Ral-fot's second mate and henchman, grinned in the harsh lighting at Jack's expression. Jack lifted his hand to touch his lip, his fingers coming away coated in crimson. He smiled at Ral-fot's cohort for a moment before making his decision. He feinted an attack and jerked his arms down on Gritle's shoulders, stunning him. Quickly pressing his advantage, he let loose a round house kick that toppled the hulk of a man to the floor. "_Don't_ do that again." 

While Jack was occupied with Gritle, Rose managed to worm her way out of Ral-fot's grip and to knock away his blaster in one fell swoop but her luck was beginning to fail her. Ral-fot was on the attack. She rolled to avoid the kick that was heading her way, striking out with her own foot towards his leg. Ral-fot yelped with pain as her foot crashed into his shin, falling to one knee before getting up again. She could see rage burning in his beady eyes and vowed to do whatever she could to keep that rage there. An angered man, or Raxacoricofallapatorian, makes mistakes that a calm person would not.

A fist that she didn't know was there rammed into the side of her face, and she was moved a few feet to the side from the force. She moved her jaw with care and touched her lip. Her finger came away tinged with red.

She raced towards Ral-fot, firing her leg towards him in a round-house kick...which he caught. He laughed at her, his huge hands completely surrounding her ankle. He had assumed that he could throw her now, but she wasn't about to let that happen. Using her other foot she dropped a few centimeters before jumping, snaking her leg around the burly alien's neck. With a twist of her hips, she made him loose his balance and fall to the floor.

Rose rolled away from the felled Raxacoricofallapatorian, and stood carefully, her breathing slightly labored from the fight. Before she could say anything to Jack, she heard the Doctor's voice as he cried out, "Rose!" 

Turning, she saw him just before he grabbed her hand. "Run for your life!" he grinned at her and she grinned back, for a moment reminded of their first meeting all those years ago.

"Wait," she said, pulling away from his hand. She raced to the crates and carefully pulled the Orb out of its hiding spot and reclaimed his hand, letting him lead her towards the TARDIS. Jack ran along beside them, shooting glances at her as they ran. Rose could almost hear the questions racing through his mind and she thanked him mentally for not asking until they were safe.

When she saw the familiar blue box rise out of the mist before her, she wanted to throw her arms around it again. "Dear old TARDIS," she murmured, earning a grin from Jack and a smile from the Doctor as he let them inside.

For the first time in three years, Rose felt like she was home.


	5. Chapter 4

_Chapter Four: Dancing_

Rose was engulfed in a hug as soon as the doors shut behind them. "Omph," her breath was forced out of her lungs from the strength of the squeeze and she laughed, batting at Jack's arms, "Let me go, Jack. It's good to see you too, but I need to breathe."

Jack let her go, but he was still grinning, "It's great to see you, Rose."

She could hardly be angry at him, but suddenly she was. She felt the anger and the hurt and all of the myriad emotions that she had felt ever since the Doctor – and by extension Jack – had left her on Earth. "You left me."

"I..." Jack's grin faded as he took in her expression.

"Rose, what was going on at that docking berth?" the Doctor asked, completely oblivious to the change of mood that had occurred between the two humans.

"You left me," Rose repeated, this time directing her words at the Doctor.

The Doctor blinked as he suddenly recognized what was happening before him, "Rose, we don't..."

"You. Left. Me," she repeated the words as she stalked forward to emphasize each word by poking him in the chest.

"Yes," the Doctor sighed, "I did. I'm sorry."

"Why?"

The Doctor's eyes were hooded, and she noted the flash of pain on his face before a mask slipped over his expression. She had seen that look only once before – as he had shoved her out of the TARDIS doors. This time he would not do the same thing to her. This time she wouldn't let him.

The Time Lord wondered just what he should tell her. Should he tell her the truth? Should he tell her that he was scared? Or should he continue to hide behind a manic grin and let the feel of her hand within his own be the only touch he should ever know from her? He was the last of a species, the last of his kind – for him to feel this strongly about a silly, adorable little ape that even now was glaring at him was astonishing. He was the Doctor. He was not human. But sometimes he wanted to be.

"Don't leave," he whispered. The unspoken 'me' echoed through the room. 

"Doctor, you left _me_," she replied just as softly. He could hear the warning, the anger, and the despair in her voice. It was a match for his own.

He ran a hand across his head in an unconscious gesture as he suddenly wanted to run. He did not want to do this now. Not here. Not after three months of self-induced torture. Not after listening to Jack yell at him at least once (if not twice or more) a day for leaving her behind. The Doctor had no desire to examine his soul or his hearts again – he was afraid of what he might find. No, he corrected himself as he looked at the young Englishwoman before him; he knew what he would find. He would find her. No more Gallifrey, no more Time Lords, only Rose Tyler.

He loved her.

The Doctor closed his eyes against the sting of tears, "Rose," he said, and her name was a benediction and a prayer, "I was scared." The admission caused Rose to stare at him in shock. Unnoticed by either, Jack quietly slipped from the room. This was something that was between the two of them – he would come back later once the smoke had cleared and they were a team again.

"Scared? Of what?" she asked, though she thought she might know the answer. He was scared of her and of what could be.

"Everything. I was terrified because at any moment I might lose you," his eyes were open as he looked at her, and within the blue tinged depths she could see an oncoming storm.

"People die everyday," she pointed out, wanting to draw the complete truth from him, "Why should you live in fear of something that might happen? Everybody dies eventually, Doctor, even you."

"Because," he said, and she could clearly see the storm in his eyes, "I can't lose you. I left you because I couldn't lose you." Even he could see the illogic of that argument, but as the Doctor was swiftly recognizing there was nothing logical about emotions.

"You're daft, you are," Rose said and a tiny smile appeared on her face, "You can't lose me. I'm here aren't I? I looked for you, you know. For the past three years I looked."

It was his turn to ask, "Why?" He had thought he had hurt her too badly for her to look for him. How he had underestimated her.

"Because," Rose said, staring at a point somewhere over his shoulder, "I couldn't stay in London and try to live my old life again. I've seen too much, I've done too much. Home isn't London, Doctor, its here. It's always been here. I looked for you because I can't do this alone. And I don't want to anymore."

The sudden sob that tore out of his throat startled them both and the Doctor leaned against one of the columns in the control room for support. "Rose," he whispered and he suddenly felt her arms wrap around him.

"It'll be okay, Doctor, it will be," she whispered into his jacket as she hugged him tightly, "I'm here, and I won't leave."

"I didn't want to make you leave," he confessed, burying his face into her hair, "I didn't want to...but I was so scared."

"You don't have to be anymore."

He smiled into her hair, "I know." He whispered something in Gallifreyan, something that he knew the TARDIS would not translate. One day he would tell her, he promised himself, one day soon. But for now, for now he would cherish this single moment wherein she was in his arms.

Rose was home. And the Doctor suddenly felt like dancing.


	6. Chapter 5

_Chapter Five: Just Like Old Times_

Jack found them sometime later in the TARDIS' kitchen sipping tea with the remains of a meal scattered about the table. His keen eyes easily spotted that their hands were entwined and he grinned. 'Just like old times,' he thought. "Save anything to eat for me?"

"Jack," Rose's smile was bright as she looked at him, "I'm sorry about earlier..."

He waved his hand dismissively, "Eh, I figured I deserved it." He rummaged about the cabinets before coming up with something that was partially edible, "You know, Rose, I'm glad you're back. The Doctor can't cook to save his life – nor can he get groceries that are actually edible." He threw the can of SPAM back into the cupboard with a grimace.

"You're hopeless without me," she grinned, and the Doctor turned to look at her, his thumb gently caressing her hand.

"Yes, I am," he agreed.

Jack cleared his throat. As much as he wanted to watch, especially since this was literally years in the making, he had questions of his own. Questions that he felt needed to be answered. Pulling out one of the chairs, swinging it around and straddling it so his chest was pressed against the back of it, Jack folded his arms across the top and looked at Rose, "So, Rose, what's going on? What happened over the three months we were gone and how did you get to Centauris? And what was going on with the Raxacoricofallapatorian?"

"Ah," Rose replied, swallowing nervously. She wasn't certain what her friends would make of what she had done, let alone what they would think of her afterward. Taking a deep breath and pulling as much comfort as possible from the Doctor's hand in her own, she began, "After you left me in London, I looked for any aliens that might be stopping through on vacation or whatever. I found an old Mixiri couple who agreed to take me to their next destination, and when I got there I started looking for a ship. I had to find you two and the TARDIS, and I thought the best way would be to look out here – in space. And, it wasn't three months for me, Jack. It was three years."

Jack pulled in a hissing breath as he looked into her eyes. He had seen eyes like that before – eyes that reflected a chaotic mix of despair, longing, and hurt because of all the things that she had been forced to do while on her own. He looked into eyes like that every morning in the mirror.

Rose sighed as she looked at the tabletop for inspiration before she continued, "I ended up buying a ship after a while. Named her the Millennium Falcon, just 'cause that's what I essentially became. I'm Han Solo." She laughed quietly before continuing, missing Jack's slightly confused expression and the Doctor's indulgent one, "I did some things that I'm not proud of, but I managed to save a planet once. You taught me well," she smiled at the Doctor and sighed, "I was on Centauris because my ship got attacked by pirates. I was running after having stolen the Fil-fot Orb from Raxacoricofallapatorius for Ral-fot. I needed the money to continue searching for the TARDIS, but since my ship was banged up I had to get a job. You know the rest after that. I don't know how Ral-fot found me, though. I didn't have enough money to call him."

"Oh, Rose," the Doctor sighed, squeezing her hand tightly, "I'm sorry."

"You've already said that," she pointed out, "So no need to repeat yourself. You're forgiven, yeah?"

"Yeah," the Doctor agreed and a familiar crooked smile worked its way across his face, "So, you don't mind that we're leaving your ship behind?"

"This is home. There's nothing there that I need; I have everything here," Rose nodded, meeting his eyes with a small grin.

"Fantastic. So, where to next Rose Tyler?"

"How about..." 

They were interrupted by a high pitched chime. "What's that?" Rose asked.

"I added an audio chime for when we receive distress signals. It's a mauve," Jack replied, leaving his chair and half eaten meal behind to run towards the control room. The Doctor and Rose were only seconds behind him.

The Doctor stood in front of the display on the console and fiddled with several switches, ordering Jack and Rose to hit one switch or another before the alert came through the speakers with a crackling hiss. 

"Is it audio?" Rose asked curiously.

"It does have audio attached to it. Mostly it's an automated signal. It's cycling through again," Jack replied, leaning over the Doctor's shoulder.

The audio came to life with a crackle, and Jack twisted a few dials to clear up the signal, "Talween to any ship in the vicinity. This is Captain Jistera Celaani. We have encountered an unknown alien vessel in distress. If there is anyone in the vicinity, please, we need your help. Message repeats."

"Jistera Celanni," Jack repeated thoughtfully, his tone curious as he attempted to search his memory for just where he had heard that name before, "Jistera. I know that name and the Talween."

The Doctor turned towards him in askance, "The Talween? You say that as if it means something to you."

"It does," Jack confirmed, recalling all too well the tales that had been shared over campfires in his youth. "Over two millennia ago, a small Daan Imperial cruiser called the Talween disappeared somewhere between the Daan Core worlds and the then newly discovered 'Outer Rim' worlds. They were carrying supplies bound for the Rim worlds. Back then, travel took many months at a time to reach what by today's standards would be a short trip. It took a year before the Daan sent out a search party, following the same path that the Talween took. But all that they found when they arrived almost half way between the sectors of the galaxy was a transmission from an unidentified source. The transmission was supposedly from the Talween, and it was full of moans of pain and the voice said that everyone else had been killed. It ended with a scream. The Talween was never found again."

Rose felt a shiver of apprehension crawl its way down her spine, but she ignored it. She had heard of the Talween from some of the spacers that had frequented Slimey's. It had been a popular tale to swap over a pint or two of local brew; it, and dozens more like it. Rose spoke up quietly, "I've heard of that story. There are millions like it. 'Here there be dragons' and the like. There's a region of space near Centauris called the Haunted Corridor because of the frequency of ship disappearances among spacers and from other races with histories around here. Surely you don't believe in that."

"The Captain of the Talween was named Jistera Celaani."

"So what? That was two millennia ago. It's possible that some descendant got named the same thing in tribute," Rose replied.

"Justin Celaani, Jistera's only brother, died a year after the discovery of the transmission, unmarried and no survivors. However, there was extended family that survived them. It is possible that a descendant was named after Jistera."

"There, see?" Rose responded, strangely relieved.

The Doctor spoke up with a thoughtful expression on his face, "There are other species that have had ships disappear in this region. Sure, some of them are probably pirates, but even if you can explain away most of them, there still are 3 of the disappearances that cannot be explained by any piracy or mutiny or science. Some think that there is some sort of creature that lives out here that has destroyed the ships."

"Right," Rose said, shaking her head, "And there's such a thing as the Loch Ness Monster."

"There is," the Doctor said, and Rose's eyes widened in shock.

"Really?"

"Remind me to take you to the plesiosaur habitat the next time we're in 25th century England," the Doctor smiled before he turned towards Jack, "It's a mauve, we have to answer it. Check the scanners and try to locate the source of the signal."

"Right," Jack grunted as his hands drifted over the controls, expertly manipulating the sensors as he searched for the proverbial 'needle in the haystack.' Space, contrary to what many people assumed, was actually alive with signals. Pulsars and Quasars emitted signals that could confuse starships, black holes emitted signals from the matter that they consumed; even the smallest particle of dust emitted a signal that in the end resulted in a cacophony of interference. Separating one source of sound, specifically the transmission from the Talween, was delicate work. Here he skirted over the radio broadcast from a pulsar, here he dismissed the interference of a black hole located over fifty light years away, there he ignored the vibrations from a nebula until he came upon the signal itself. Using the signal, which was now locked into the computer's memory, he ordered the sensors to trace the path towards its origin.

The screen in front of him flashed a 'Signal Source Detected,' and Jack grinned. Success. "Found it!"

Feeding the coordinates that Jack read off to him into the TARDIS controls, the time ship came to life with its familiar wheezing groan. With a manic grin, the Doctor looked at his companions as the ship shuddered beneath them, "Let's find this Talween."


	7. Chapter 6

_Chapter Six: Business as Usual_

TARDIS  
10 light minutes away from bow of the Talween

Jack stared at the ship in open awe. For a ship as old as he thought the Talween was, she was in excellent condition. The old design for Daan Imperial Cruisers placed the command center towards the middle of the thick ship, and from the display on the TARDIS console, he could see flickering lights shining through the viewports. The Talween was all engine, which she needed to be given the distances she needed to travel and how much time it would take to traverse it.

"So this would be the Talween," the Doctor muttered to himself, impressed besides himself.

"And it looks like they don't have any company," Jack commented after checking the sensor readouts.

"No alien vessel, huh? Why am I not surprised..." the Doctor said softly, his initial impression of the Talween fading to unease.

Jack had confirmed that this ship was the origin of the message, however, from the scans that he was able to perform, there was no discernable sources of power that were active on the ship. It was dead in the water, yet somehow someone had sent out a message.  
Tapping the console thoughtfully, the Doctor sighed, "I'm going to open a channel to our friends on the Talween."

Rose watched the Doctor with interest as he flipped a switch, unconsciously admiring his familiar features. However, she was filled with unease. She wanted to help the Talween's crew as much as the Doctor did, but she felt something pulling her back, telling her to flee this area of space as fast as the TARDIS could take them.

"Talween, this is the Doctor. We received your distress signal. Is there anything that we can do to help?"

The comm unit roared to life with a response, "Doctor...need...assistance. Trouble on board. Can supply with anything you need if you could help with refugees. Alien vessel...destroyed..." The transmission faded into static.

"Now that's interesting," Jack muttered, "There's a signal hidden under that transmission." He flipped several switches and pressed the playback.

The piggybacked signal was grainy and barely understandable, but under the hiss of static what they heard would cause chills to run down all of their backs.

"Oh God...what...please, get out of here! Don't stay here! Go! Oh GOD!" The voice rose into a bone-chilling scream before the transmission was suddenly cut off.

Rose, Jack, and the Doctor shared a nervous look before staring at the display at the now uncomfortable expanse of space. The questions raised by the piggybacked transmission ran rampant through the TARDIS crew's minds. What could it mean?

The Doctor suddenly grinned, "Fantastic! I've always loved a good ghost story."

Rose was torn between wanting to hit him and grinning back. The familiar feeling of impending excitement coursed through her veins and she decided upon sharing an echoing grin with the Doctor.

That was, of course, when the TARDIS' console decided to spark dangerously. The display on the console changed to a string of what could only be Gallifreyan characters before they faded to be replaced with the English words of 'SYSTEM FAILURE.' The temporal rotor on top of the console began to move indicating that the TARDIS was landing, despite the fact that the Doctor had yet to command the time ship to do so.

"No, no, no, no!" the Doctor shouted as he attempted to coax the system into responding, "Jack, hit the rotor switch, maybe we can stop the materialization process."

Jack nodded and tried his best to comply but the TARDIS sparked each time he tried to reach the rotor, "Doctor, this isn't working!"

"The dimensional stabilizer can't be broken! We just fixed that," the Doctor exclaimed, kicking the bottom half of the console.

"Doctor!" Rose called for his attention as she pointed at the dimming lights in the center console. A second later, all of the lights in the TARDIS went out.

"Well, that can't be good," Jack said.


	8. Chapter 7

_Chapter Seven: Paranoia_

The Doctor's face looked strangely gaunt in the light cast by his sonic screwdriver. Rose could hear him mumbling something about finding a torch, but until that point she suspected the safest thing for her to do would be to remain where she was. There had been a point in time where she thought she could negotiate the corridors of the TARDIS in the dark, but that was three years ago. She'd be far more likely to mistakenly open a door and fall into the TARDIS pool or get eaten by a man-eating plant in one of the gardens.

"Ah ha!" the Doctor's triumphant shout heralded the appearance of a warm golden glow from a torch. In the light, Rose could see (and now smell) smoke rising from burnt circuitry. The Doctor's smile faltered as he took in the damage, "I don't have any spare gwaila crystals – that's my last batch currently smoldering in the console. Without them, we're not going anywhere."

"What happened?" Rose asked, "And where are we?"

"The dimensional stabilizer's shot and, if I know the TARDIS' emergency protocols – which I do – we're on the nearest habitable planet or starship. We're on the Talween."

"Ghost story, huh, Doctor?" Jack asked, repeating the Doctor's earlier words, "There is one good thing about this. If we're on the Talween, we should be able to find some gwaila crystals. If I remember correctly, the Daan used them in their command and control circuitry."

"Which means we're going to have to go out there," Rose finished, looking towards the darkened doorway that led to the outside world.  
Somehow, she felt far safer inside the TARDIS despite the fact that it was currently parked within what could possibly be a haunted spaceship. "Fantastic," she sighed, before she caught the Doctor's sudden grin and Jack's laugh, "What? It's not like you have a patent on the word, Doctor."

"I'll stay here and see if there's anything I can salvage," Jack said, "Though you might want to pick up some extra gwaila crystals if this is going to be a recurring thing, Doctor."

"Everyone's a critic," the Doctor shook his head, "Well, Rose? Ready to explore a haunted spaceship?"

"Oh sure," she murmured, sounding rather unconvinced.

-------  
Daan Explorer Ship Talween

She didn't know what she had expected to find when she and the Doctor entered the ancient starship, but she knew that what she found was not it. Instead of cobwebs, corpses, foggy mists and the smell of decay there was brightness and a smell of flowers that accompanied her every movement through the Talween. However, underneath the beautiful exterior, she felt that there was something seriously wrong.

"This place is a little too nice looking," Rose commented as she looked around.

"Yeah, normal starships get some rust or wear and tear after long use. This place reminds me of a hospital...a brand new hospital," The Doctor agreed, "No one came to meet us..."

As if in answer, a sound echoed through the gleaming corridors--a sound oddly reminiscent of a footstep. However, after that single sound, they could hear nothing else.

"Hello?" Rose said, pitching her voice so that it would carry.

Silence.

The Doctor shifted his feet, an almost unconscious gesture of his nervousness. "Let's go, Rose. We need those parts, and standing here isn't going to help us any."

Somewhere deep within the Talween, the ancient entity would have smiled. Soon...all too soon, it would take what had been denied it for so long...food.

Her breathing sounded louder in her ears as she and the Doctor ventured further into the too-clean bowels of the Talween. After hearing footsteps earlier, now the only sound was made by themselves. Rose shook her head at her own thoughts, realizing that all she was doing was a very good job of scaring herself. It was true that it was strange that no one had come to meet them, and that no one had even contacted them as they walked through the deserted hallways. But from what Jack had told her and from the stories that she had listened to, she knew that the Talween only had a main crew of eight, along with a massive hyperdrive section. It was towards this that she and the Doctor traveled.

_CRASH_

Rose and the Doctor stopped in an instant, turning toward the noise behind them. A large container had turned on its side and was rocking against the wall in a steady 'tap, tap' noise.

"Hello?" The Doctor said, "I know someone's back there. Come on out."

They waited in a tense silence, but nothing revealed itself, indeed it seemed as if the entire ship was waiting in anticipation of their next move. The Doctor slowly approached the rocking container.

From where she stood, she could see beads of sweat appear on his neck as he closed in on the object. Fear pounded through her veins though it was for no known reason. It was the fear of the unknown, and there was much to fear on this ship.

"Rose," his voice was hushed as his hand gestured for her to join him.

When she reached his side, she couldn't prevent the gasp of astonishment that escaped her lips. Where once there was a white wall, 'Danger' was scrawled in a child-like hand behind the container in what appeared to be blood.

"Who did this?" she asked, and even her voice betrayed the tremors that now shook her body. "There's no way someone could have come up behind us, knocked over the container, written that, and disappeared. NO WAY."

"Maybe it was written before?" The Doctor suggested, his eyes sweeping the empty hallway.

"How could they have known we were coming this way? There were two ways we could have gone."

"It could be written in two places..." he began, before shaking his head, "It's probably nothing but tricks to scare us. Come on, we need to get to the hyperdrive section."

Rose nodded reluctantly. She longed to return to the relative safety of the TARDIS, where though she would just as surely die after a lifetime of being isolated in no-man's land she knew that it was far safer than the ship that she had just entered.

Their hands firmly entwined, Rose and the Doctor walked further into the bowels of the Talween. The only sound was now of their heavy breathing and the ever fainter 'tap tap' of the container.

"Why did it say 'danger?'" her voice was a shock and caused the Time Lord to jerk in response.

"Sorry," she apologized after he glared at her, "I just was wondering."

"I don't know."

"Could it be because something had happened to the Talween? Something that they had never expected could happen? Something that could still be on this ship?" she mused.

"I'd say that you're paranoid," The Doctor muttered, but inwardly he had to acknowledge that she might have a point.

"What if I'm not?"

He had no answer.


	9. Chapter 8

_Chapter Eight: That Impending Sense of Doom..._

Talween  
Somewhere near the hyperdrive section

A thought that refused to congeal tickled the edge of his consciousness. Something about the Talween and the way it made him feel had struck a chord deep within the Time Lord's soul however he could not determine just what it could be. The impending sense of doom? No, he felt that every time he stepped outside of the TARDIS. The feeling of being watched? No, that was the impending sense of doom again. The overbearing use of white in the Talween's décor? Ah, that must be it. No one used that much white, especially after the fiasco at the 5055 Olympics.

"Doctor?" Rose's voice interrupted his musings, "I was wondering...could it be the Gelth? I mean, everything about this ship reminds me of when we faced them before. The only difference is I have yet to be nicked by an undertaker."

The Doctor's lips quirked into a smile, "Let's hope we continue that trend. I doubt it, though. They couldn't physically manipulate objects without inhabiting a corpse nor were they able to compete in any athletic event. I certainly can't see them knocking over that container and escaping before we saw evidence of their presence."

"True," Rose acknowledged, shivering suddenly as a draft of cold air blew down the hallway. In every movie that she had ever seen, this, she suspected, was the part where they either get separated from one another or something attacks them. She unconsciously moved closer to the comforting form of the Doctor.

The Time Lord caught the shiver and, after only a second's worth of thought, shrugged off his jacket and placed it around her shoulders. "You're cold," he said by way of explanation.

"Something's off about this ship's temperature controls - it was comfortable back by the TARDIS but here I can see my breath. Won't you get cold?" she asked, wrapping the warm jacket around her slender form more firmly. She was willing to admit to herself that the jacket, and the accompanying scent that was purely the Doctor, was just as comforting as his presence.

"Me? Nah, the wonders of a bi-vascular system," the Doctor replied, suppressing a reflexive shiver. "I'm comfortable."

She looked at him suspiciously, but shrugged. Rose had no intention, really, of giving up the dark leather jacket anytime soon. "How much further do you think?"

The Doctor was about to reply but before he could speak panels of lights began to wink out down the corridor, moving in a steady progression towards them. Inky blackness lurked beyond the last pool of light, and it grew darker if it was possible with each light it consumed. It was as if the dark were a living thing, consuming the light as it grew ever closer to them.

"Doctor..." Rose said in a hushed tone. Fear strained her voice, and her instincts screamed at her to run. Danger lurked in that darkness, she could feel it with every beat of her heart. If they stayed, they would die. It was more than a conviction to her fear-struck mind; it was a fact.

"RUN!" The Doctor commanded, using their joined hands to pull her down the corridor. Their feet were lent the wings of fear, urged onward by each panel of light that succumbed to the darkness behind them. He pulled her through a doorway and hit a panel, causing the door to woosh shut behind them.

In the brilliant light of the new room, her earlier fear seemed childish and weak. She began to laugh, but it was not a laugh of joy, but a laugh brought about by fear that had affected her far too deeply to merely be dismissed by light. It was a laugh of hysterics, "I...can't...believe...we...were afraid...of...the dark!" she gasped between laughs, but her laughter refused to stop.

The Doctor grabbed her arms and shook her gently, "Rose, listen to me. I felt it too. There was something out there. What it was, I'm not sure..."

He was speaking but it seemed as if she was no longer listening to him. Instead, her soulful brown eyes stared in abject horror at a point beyond his shoulder. The hairs at the nape of his neck rose as he slowly turned around. Behind him, on another white wall, a message was scrawled in the same child-like hand: 'Soul Eater.'

"That's impossible," he breathed, suddenly recognizing the thought that had been nagging him since they had arrived on the Talween.

"I saw it being written, Doctor. There was nothing there, and then...the words just appeared like someone was writing them. What's going on? What's a 'Soul Eater'?" Rose's voice broke, her earlier laughter turned to fear.

He uttered the three words that he knew she never expected to hear from him, "I don't know. There are stories from my people, stories of an ancient evil known as the Soul Eater. It was was born sometime in the beginning of the universe. At first this evil thing was not evil as we know it, but something spurred it to hate all of creation and it chose to do all that it could to destroy what had been created. It picked on any form of intelligence, and used their life force to survive and grow stronger. As in most of Gallifreyan myths, especially where Rassilon was concerned, Rassilon fought the Soul Eater. After a horrific battle, the Soul Eater was banished from Gallifrey. However, in constant defiance of Rassilon and the Time Lords, the Soul Eater will come back every millennium to feed." 

"Do you think it's real?"

"Whenever Rassilon is concerned, everything needs to be taken with a grain of salt. However, I suspect that there is more to the story than just Rassilon trying to increase his popularity," the Doctor admitted reluctantly.

"If it's real, how can we defeat it?" 

"If the story's to be believed we have to destroy this ship. However, we can't do that without finding the gwaila crystals."

Rose tried and failed to suppress the shudder that ran through her slender form at his words, "But we're probably going to end up facing it..."

"Then face it we will," the Doctor said grimly, "And then we'll destroy it."


	10. Chapter 9

_Chapter Nine: Evil Never Dies..._

Talween  
Hyperdrive Section

'Food,' the massive creature that was the Soul Eater coiled itself in the engineering core. The ancient entity could sense the approach of more morsels to fuel its never-ending appetite for the delicate thoughts that whispered in the minds of those puny mortals. Banishment still stung it, still angered it, for it was the rightful master of the universe. These creatures that crawled upon it were its food, its right.

It suddenly realized that there was something different about one of the morsels that approached it – something very familiar. It had sensed several minds such as that one before its banishment and it immediately gave voice to the creature's name, "TIME LORD..." If the entity could smile, it would have. The time of its revenge drew ever closer with each step the mortals took into its lair.

At the door to the engineering bay, the Doctor and Rose paused in what appeared to be fright, but instead was great trepidation. The creature that lurked beyond the seemingly solid doors had destroyed so many of their counterparts. 'We have to kill it,' the slender woman reminded herself forcefully. 'Or to at least destroy it.'

Without any effort on their part, the engineering doors slid open and they were greeted by a sight that caused both of them to stop in shock. Something was in there, and it coiled and wafted around the massive hyperdrive engines that supplied power to the Cruiser. More gaseous than solid, the creature almost completely filled the room.

Fear sent a spear through her heart, and behind them, the doors to the engineering deck slammed shut with a resounding BANG.

Rose and the Doctor moved back towards the shut doorway behind them, keeping a wary eye on the thing before them. It seemed to pulse and writhe around the massive hyperdrive of the Talween, only now tendrils were snaking ever closer to where she and the Doctor stood. She knew that if one of those tendrils brushed against her, she would be eaten, so she kept an eye on them.

"Welcome," the voice rumbled throughout the engineering bay and vibrated in Rose's chest. The voice was dark sounding, and infinitely old.

"Are you the Soul Eater?" Rose asked, unsure why she responded, or why she asked an obvious question.

"I am that and more. I am the past, the present, and your future. I am the beginning and the end. I am hunger and I am pain. I am hatred and anger. I am the dark of night and the fear of the unknown. I am a world's torture and another world's destruction. I AM," the last two words echoed through the large chamber as the being shifted again.

"Time Lord..." it whispered, and the Doctor reflexively stiffened. "TIME LORD!" The Soul Eater's tendrils moved violently as it repeated the Doctor's title.

The Doctor could feel the weight of the creature's regard as he stood next to Rose, but he suddenly grinned, "That's me! Hello!" He waved cheekily at the creature.

The ancient entity rumbled its anger. The being shifted again, only this time the two could see a pair of glowing eyes moving closer to them, "The time for my revenge has come at last..."

Rose felt the Doctor stiffen at her side and she turned towards him with a question in her eyes, "Doctor?" His name conveyed dozens of questions. What can we do? How can we stop it? Are you okay? 

Suddenly, Rose realized that something was terribly, horribly wrong. The Doctor's eyes, normally conveying the hint of an oncoming storm, were blank. There was no life in his eyes, and Rose's earlier fears reached a crescendo.

"Doctor!" She shouted, reaching out to touch his face. She ignored the laughter of the entity; all that mattered was the Doctor. The moment she touched his skin, the world disappeared.

In an instant she could see her life passing before her eyes. She saw her parents, Mickey, the Doctor, Jack, and the TARDIS...and then the images changed. She saw a planet of whose name she did not know, she saw a massive house of which she suddenly knew was called Lungbarrow, she saw a massive Citadel rising above the plains, she saw a laughing woman with long brown hair who became someone else yet was still the same person, she saw herself and Jack laughing on the TARDIS floor, and then she saw nothing.

Her life had become a blank slate; a landscape of white that stretched from horizon to horizon. Then came the Presence. It appeared as a dark spot that tainted the purity of the mindscape. It called to her, coaxed her, and pleaded with her all in the space of a heartbeat. 'Come to me; I will give you what you have always wished. Your memory will be with me forever. Forever will be as long as you shall live.'

Forever stretched across an infinity of worlds, and she saw far more into the mind of the Presence than she sensed it would ever want her to know unless she was a part of it. Soul Eater was but one of its many names, but the one that had stretched across the eons was Intellivore. It was far more than it seemed, and far more evil than any mortal mind could fathom.

Evil had a name and form to her now, beyond Daleks, beyond the Slitheen, beyond the Gelth, and it was Intellivore.

It was the essence of all that was vile, and the stench of all that was tantalizing in her darkest part of her mind. It was an offer of infinity and an offer of eternal torment. It was the easy offer of the dark, but she resisted it. "No," she said, and the word echoed across the mindscape, "I will not."

Rose felt the Presence's anger as it rushed over her like a tidal wave. There was nothing to brace herself against, nothing to prevent her from being swept away...until she felt his hand grab her own.

"Doctor," Rose identified him by touch alone and she watched the white landscape fade away to be replaced by a bizarre world of multi-colored jackets, question mark umbrellas, four foot long scarves, and sprigs of celery. "Where am I?" she asked, looking around in amazement.

"Rose Tyler," the Doctor said, "Welcome to my mind."


	11. Chapter 10

_Chapter Ten: Jungian Archetypes_

TARDIS

It had been more than six hours since he had last heard from the Doctor and Rose, and Jack was worried. He knew all too well the almost uncanny ability his friends had to find themselves in trouble. Patience was a skill that he could excel in. He had been known to wait for a target for a con to arrive for days straight with little more than a hypervodka and another warm body to keep him company. However, even for someone like him, there comes a point when patience is no longer an option.

He was rapidly approaching that point.

Jack had tried calling Rose's cell phone only a few moments ago, to 'check on their progress,' but major interference had prevented a connection. "What the hell is going on?" he asked the too silent TARDIS, but as he expected the damaged time ship did not reply. The fact that he should have been able to reach Rose's phone no matter the interference only served to increase his worry.

"Damnit," he muttered under his breath as another precious second slipped away. If he didn't hear from the Doctor and Rose within the next few minutes, he would go after them.

After all, what were friends for?

-----

"Your what?" Rose asked, blinking as she tried to come to terms with what she had just witnessed. Vaguely she wondered if this was what insanity was like. One moment ago, she felt as if her very essence was being drained. The next she was in a world that was far stranger than any scrap of fiction she had ever read. After all, who would ever think that a coat that impossibly colored belonged in a display case?

"My mind," the Doctor repeated. He swallowed for a moment before turning towards her, "Rose, are you alright?"

"Alright?" Rose laughed, "We just faced the Soul Eater – something straight out of a Time Tot's fairy tale and you're asking if I'm alright? You're daft, you are."

His lips quirked into a smile, but it did not quite reach his eyes, "Sort of, yeah."

"Doctor," she began somewhat hesitantly, "What happened back there? That white nothingness, the feeling of evil...I thought it was going to overwhelm me."

The Doctor's expression was serious as he looked into her eyes, "It almost did. I wasn't expecting you to touch me, Rose. You were supposed to stay out of this – I was trying to protect you from it..."

"Protect me? Doctor! We've been over this already. You don't have to protect me. If anything, we protect each other. And protecting each other means you do not shut me out," Rose placed her hands on her hips and glared at him. For a moment, the Doctor was forcibly reminded of Jackie Tyler at her worst. He could almost feel Jackie's slap again from the force of Rose's glare.

"Rose..." he began.

"Doctor..." she said in the same tone.

"Would both of you leave the domestics outside? SOME of us are trying to find a solution to this problem of yours," a new voice interrupted their conversation. Astonished, the two time travelers turned to face what looked to be twelve mismatched, and sometimes rather oddly dressed, men.

"Oh no," the Doctor sighed.

"Oh yes," the identity of the earlier speaker was revealed to be a short rather funny looking man carrying a question mark handled umbrella. "You've made quite a mess of things, Doctor."

"I..."

Rose interrupted the beginnings of a rather angry rant, "Who are they?"

"They're me," the Doctor replied, fighting the urge to put his head in his hands. "Well, they were and will be me." His nose wrinkled slightly as he attempted to explain, "They're sort of..."

"Jungian archetypes," the Seventh Doctor finished.

"Rather annoying voices that won't shut up," the Doctor corrected.

Rose could feel a headache coming on. "As if one of you wasn't enough..."

"Oi! I heard that," the Doctor that she was swiftly finding herself referring to as _hers_ assumed a rather affronted look.

"You were meant to," she smiled at him, "But, that doesn't tell me what they're doing here and what we can do to defeat the Soul Eater and get out of this mess."

"I like her," the Seventh Doctor said, "Reminds me a bit of Ace come to think of it. You wouldn't happen to like explosions, would you?"

Rose wasn't sure what to make of that comment so she let it pass. Instead, she looked at _her_ Doctor and waited for an answer to her question.

"They're here because I'm in danger. They tend to pop out of the woodwork," he tapped his head by way of explanation, "to either give me advice or to tell me what a horrible job I'm doing. Generally it's both."

"And the Soul Eater?" she prompted. Rose suspected that the Doctor's 'Jungian archetypes' were flustering the normally unflappable Doctor. While on one hand it was amusing to watch, on the other she needed _her_ Doctor back. He shouldn't be this easily distracted.

"That's a problem. When you touched me, you were pulled into a telepathic link between myself and the Soul Eater. I had to pull you deeper into my mind to prevent you from being, well, eaten. That gave it an opening. It's trying to get in, and I don't know much longer I can keep it out."

"Well...how was it defeated before? Maybe we can use that?"

"Rassilon never explained how he defeated the Soul Eater," the Seventh Doctor explained, "Sadly; we cannot repeat what we do not know."

"Then what were you trying to do with that telepathic link, Doctor?" Rose asked, suspecting that she wasn't going to like the answer.

He wasn't certain how much to reveal to her, especially since he knew of her opinion of his trying to protect her. "I was trying to distract it," he said in a soft tone, "So you could escape."

Rose sighed, "Doctor, I've had enough of this. Stop putting my life before yours! I won't have it. I'm stuck in here same as you. We're in this together, got it?" When he didn't immediately reply, she stepped forward and poked him in the chest, "Got it?"

"Got it," the Doctor began before his voice trailed off. A moment later, the familiar manic grin was back, "Rose Tyler you're fantastic! Brilliant! Beautiful! You did it!"

"Did what?" Rose asked, confused, but the Doctor was ignoring her.

"You solved the problem, Rose! I know what to do. I know what's supposed to happen!"

"Mind filling me in?"

"Don't mind if I do..."


	12. Chapter 11

_Chapter Eleven: Jack to the Rescue_

"DAMNIT!" Jack cursed loudly before switching to an alien language to add another, far more appropriate, curse to describe his current situation. Rubbing his shin with a pained expression on his face, the former Time Agent limped his way up the stairs and towards his room. The torch was dying, its weak light shining before him as he attempted to reach his room. Silently, this time, he cursed himself for not thinking ahead and leaving a blaster (or two) secreted somewhere in the control room. If he had, he would not have to walk through the darkened TARDIS and risk tripping over the odd assortment of clutter that either the Doctor or Rose had left lying about. If he had, he would not be limping. If he had, he would not be Jack Harkness.

Jack grinned as he opened the door to his room. His weapons were arrayed on the dresser – in a moment of whimsy he had arranged them from largest to smallest before deciding that it was best to arrange them more by damage dealt. He selected one of his favorites, the sonic blaster, and placed it and another 'large damage dealer' into his holsters. Almost as a side-thought he grabbed one of the pale gray deodorant cans and slipped it into his pocket. He had found a stash of the explosives, made by someone named Ace according to the Doctor, in one of the TARDIS' rooms and had decided to appropriate them for his own use. One never knew when an explosion might be a handy distraction.

Deciding he was as prepared as he could be, the former Time Agent began the perilous trek back to the control room. The torch died somewhere between the second and first levels of the TARDIS, but somehow the old girl managed set up a faint glow about the floor boards that kept him from falling to a rather undignified death. "Thanks," he whispered to the damaged time ship and he thought he saw the glow increase momentarily in response.

He reached the control room a short while later and he set the now useless torch onto the console. Jack had no idea what he would find beyond the double doors to the TARDIS, which only made him grin. Like the Doctor, he tended to find the unknown rather exciting. Too bad he didn't currently have the Doctor (or Rose, or both for that matter) to share it with. Pulling the sonic blaster from its holster, he opened one of the doors to the TARDIS and aimed at…absolutely nothing. Feeling somewhat sheepish, Jack pulled the door closed behind him and stepped further into the Talween.

Jack wasn't certain what it was about the Talween that made the tiny hairs at the nape of his neck rise or caused the sensation of being watched. What he did know was that he didn't much like it. Picking the direction that would lead towards the hyperdrive section, Harkness set off at a brisk walk. While he wasn't sure why he was so uneasy, he made certain that he kept his blaster at hand at all times. He was the one who was supposed to be doing the rescuing – it wouldn't do for him to have to be rescued.

It might ruin his image.

Tension tightened his muscles as he walked – at any moment he almost expected something to jump out at him. This was a classic horror story, he decided, despite the Talween's far too clean exterior. While there was a time and place for every story, he rather wished that he was not living in one now. Rose and the Doctor had been gone for far too long; his overactive imagination could easily come up with dozens of reasons of why that might be the case. Most of those reasons were not worth thinking about again, though some he filled out in far too graphic detail. "Please be alright," he muttered out loud as he suddenly felt the need to fill the silence of the corridor with something other than his own footsteps.

Thankfully, or perhaps disturbingly, he made it to the hyperdrive section of the ship without encountering any difficulties. Jack regarded the closed door thoughtfully before he hit the panel that should open it for him. As the doors obligingly slid open, his eyes widened at the sight within. Of everything he had imagined this, he decided, was far, far worse.

------

Intellivore growled its displeasure as each attempt to retrieve the morsel that was Rose Tyler's soul was thwarted. It had forgotten the mental abilities of the Time Lords, just as it had forgotten that that had been the means by which the Time Lords had defeated it the last time it had attempted an excursion into this universe. Its gaseous tendrils snaked towards the two frozen figures but something kept driving it back. It growled again before it realized that someone else had entered its domain.

There was a great deal of life in the morsel that was moving closer to its lair – life enough, perhaps, to strengthen it for its fight against the will of the Time Lord. If the entity could have smiled, it would have. Its revenge was nigh.

-----

The Doctor paused in his explanation to Rose to cock his head. Almost comically, at least to Rose, the other aspects of the Time Lord tilted their heads as well. "Something has changed," the Doctor stated.

Suddenly, the Jungian archetypes of her Doctor's mind spoke in an almost unintelligible babble.

"It's distracted."

"No longer on the attack."

"Now is the time."

"Doctor!" Rose shouted, trying to be heard over the noise the others were making, "What's happening?"

_Her_ Doctor turned towards her and suddenly grinned, "It's Jack. Jack is what's happening. Fantastic!"

------

Jack was, at heart, a shoot first and ask questions later kind of guy. When confronted by the gaseous, pulsating entity that coiled around the hyperdrive core and the silent and rigid forms of his friends, there really was no question of what he would do.

He fired.


	13. Chapter 12

_Chapter Twelve: Greater Love_

"Clever little Time Lord," an ancient and foul sounding voice spoke from the darkness that had suddenly loomed behind Rose. "But not clever enough."

"Rose! Run!" The Doctor commanded, but before she could comply something grabbed her arm and halted her flight.

Tendrils of gray crept around her feet, and she felt a corresponding weakness fill her and she almost stumbled. The white mindscape was curling around her mind and Rose whispered, "Doctor..."

"Stop this! I know what you want, Soul Eater. You want me. Not Rose Tyler. I challenge you," one of the Doctor's previous incarnations stepped forward, shooting Rose's Doctor a comforting look.

"You? Challenge me?" the entity asked incredulously, but its grip on Rose slackened.

"To a battle of the minds. Mano y mano. You versus me, or rather the various versions of me, in a contest. Winner takes all," the Seventh Doctor spoke up, "I win, you leave the cosmos and my friends alone."

Intellivore laughed, "And if you lose, I take all – you, your companions, and the rest of this universe."

"You cannot break the rules, Soul Eater. We challenge each other thirteen times, to different contests. You have to see it through, or by default I win."

"It's been a long time since I last played with my food," Intellivore nodded, "Very well, I accept your rules." A moment later, the entity was joined by twelve other versions of itself.

"Doctor, what can I do to help?" Rose asked, suddenly feeling out of her depth.

"Live," her Doctor replied, stepping forward to touch her cheek, "Just live."

"You too," she said, "We're in this together, Doctor. Don't forget that."

He merely smiled sadly in response.

"Begin," the Soul Eater commanded, and obligingly each Jungian archetype, accompanied by a version of the entity, disappeared to attend to their particular contests.

"What part of 'we're in this together' didn't he understand?" Rose grumbled, watching her Doctor and all but the Seventh version fade away to confront their versions of the Intellivore. She knew that she was being unfair to him, especially given that she was apparently the 'prize' to be won, or eaten for that matter, at the end of the game. That, however, did little to convince her emotions of that fact.

"We _are_ in this together," the Seventh Doctor assured her as he set up a chess board, "You have nothing to worry about, at least for the moment. I'll have you know that I am a talented chess player."

The being that represented one facet of the Intellivore laughed, "Does it make it easier to encourage hope, even when you already know that the game is lost, Time Lord?"

"The game has only just begun, Soul Eater," he replied, placing the white pieces before him. There was symbolism in his choice; in fact, he could have probably come up with an impressive dissertation on the matter. However, that was neither here nor there.

"It has only just begun, but the conclusion is written in stone," the being grinned, and Rose felt a chill run up her spine as she seemed to physically feel the evil from the power of that smile.

"Not for a Time Lord."

"Perhaps," it said, moving its first piece.

"Doctor," she began, though it seemed strange to call this funny little man by her Doctor's name.

"Try 'Professor.' I never could get Ace to realize that my name was the Doctor, but I sometimes find that I miss it," he said, correctly interpreting her hesitation.

"Professor," Rose continued, finding that name somewhat easier to use, "Why did he, you, decide to do this? You could've still beaten Intellivore without having me around."

"No!" the exclamation was sudden, and the Seventh Doctor seemed startled at his own vehemence, "No, Rose. You're too important to risk. It was my, our, choice. I can't let you die."

"Why not? Professor, I already told the Doctor this once...everyone dies. Why should I matter so much that you're willing to put the universe at risk?"

"Greater love hath no man than to lay down his life for a friend," he replied.

"Exactly! I was willing to do that, Professor. Why wouldn't he let me? Why does he keep doing this to me?"

"Rose, haven't you realized why I, or rather the other me, keeps pushing you out of harm's way?" the Seventh Doctor asked as he moved a chess piece, "I'm, he's, trying to protect you, but it's deeper than that. Think."

"He cares about me," Rose said, shrugging slightly, "I know that."

"Amazing things, humans. They're my favorite species, but sometimes they can be so oblivious to the truth," he sighed as he waited for his opponent to make its move.

"You talk far too much," the Intellivore said, its voice rumbling through the room. A simulacrum of a hand pushed one of the knights into position.

"Just passing the time," the Seventh Doctor replied, "It's not every day a Time Lord plays chess with the Soul Eater. Besides, you're not much of a conversationalist." He made a show of considering the board for a long time, before he shifted his bishop.

"He likes to insult humans, too," Rose sighed.

"It's not an insult, Rose. Far from it," he said, "Just think about it. He certainly won't tell you, though he really should. I never realized how stubborn I could be."

"Tell me what?" she asked, for a moment daring to hope this previous incarnation would reveal the only thing she had ever truly wanted from the Doctor from the moment she had first taken his hand.

"He loves you," the Seventh Doctor sighed again – this was not a conversation that he, out of all of his selves, had desired to enter. Nor was he the best one for the job, however, he was all that was there. His other selves were fighting their own incarnations of the Intellivore; which left him with Rose Tyler.

"He...what?"

"Loves you," he repeated.

"That's...that's..."

"What? Not possible? Fantastic?" He shot her a sly grin as he shifted another piece to counter the Intellivore's move.

"Wow."

"Check," the Doctor informed his opponent who merely growled in response.

"You betray yourself, Time Lord. You have revealed too much to me, for now I know your weakness..." The Intellivore told him, its evil grin widening further.

"It is not a weakness, Soul Eater. It's a strength. If anything, it's the greatest strength that I, we, have. Besides, you've already agreed to the game and gave your word. I remember the rules – if you break them, I win. You leave this universe and never return."

"And if you lose, Doctor," it replied, using his name for the first time, "You, your companions, and this entire delectable universe are mine to consume."

"Yes, yes, whatever," he waved his hand dismissively, "You haven't won yet. So stop jabbering and move." Without missing a beat, even though he didn't even turn to look at his flabbergasted companion, he continued, "What is it Rose?"

"It's not the same, though. You saying it, instead of him," Rose said, running her hand through her hair in an unconscious gesture.

"Well, technically speaking I am him and he is me."

"True," she admitted somewhat reluctantly.

"He'll be telling you soon enough," the Seventh Doctor replied, considering his next move, "This is going to be one of the shortest games that I have ever participated in."

"I have won," the entity nodded, making to stand.

"Not quite," he said, moving a key piece on the board, "That would be a check...and a mate. _I_ won."

Intellivore growled, moving its hand across the pieces and scattering them across the floor, "You may have won this round, but there are twelve more to go."

"No one likes a sore loser," the Doctor scolded.


	14. Chapter 13

_Chapter Thirteen: And in this Corner_

The Doctor stared at the cards in his hand, a faint frown pulling at his lips. This was a game of dumb luck, he decided, though he suspected that that meant he had an advantage. After all, of all the Time Lords he had ever known, he had the best luck of them all. Tugging at the hem of his multi-colored jacket with one hand, he looked at his opponent and grinned, "Give me your jacks."

One card was passed to the Doctor, though not without some audible grumbling. Things were definitely starting to look up.

"Give me your aces," he instructed.

With what could only be described as a malicious grin, the Intellivore told him, "Go fish."

-----

"I'll see your bet and raise it by ten," the Doctor said, throwing two chips into the pot.

Nodding, the Soul Eater tossed another chip into the pot, "Call."

He suddenly grinned as he laid out three of a kind. The Intellivore grumbled as it set down a pair.

"I believe that hand's mine," the Doctor said smugly.

------

The fifth Doctor grinned as he stood at the ready, cricket bat in hand. "Go on, then," he encouraged his opponent.

With a slightly speculative look, the Intellivore bowled the ball.

------

"King me," the Doctor grinned in an unknowing echo of his present incarnation's manic smile.

The Soul Eater's gaze was thunderous as it placed a black checker on top of the Doctor's piece.

------

With just the tip of his tongue sticking out of his mouth, the Doctor aimed the dart carefully at the board. It wouldn't do to miss; especially since his opponent was ahead. Pulling in a deep breath, he let the tiny dart fly.

"Ha!" he exclaimed rather gleefully, "Bulls-eye!"

Intellivore growled.

-----

"English words only," the Doctor informed the Soul Eater as he eyed his pieces. "Ah," he said as he laid out the letters to spell out 'XENON,' "That would be a triple letter score for the X..."

"You cheat," it informed the Doctor.

"How can I? Those were the letters in my hand, and _you_ were the one that selected them for me," the Time Lord inserted just enough disdain in his voice to indicate just what he had thought of that development. "It's Scrabble, not rocket science."

-----

Elsewhere in his mind, the games continued...and the Time Lord won. One by one, the different versions of the Doctor returned along with a far weakened Intellivore.

"NO!" the ancient entity growled, "No one defeats me."

"No one?" The Doctor asked with a smug smile on his face, "Strange, I seem to think that I just did."

"The agreement is terminated," Intellivore informed him, surging towards Rose, "You are mine to consume!"

"Did I ever tell you about one of my favorite things about dreams, Rose?" The Ninth Doctor asked as he reached behind himself to pull out a rather dangerous looking rifle, "I know how to control them." 

-----  
Hyperdrive Section

It was definitely time for the heavy weapons, Jack decided as he switched from his sonic blaster to the rifle that he had fondly named Bettie. The creature before him had seemed to absorb the sonic blaster's burst without suffering any damage – something which concerned him greatly. "Let's see how you like this," he growled as he pressed the trigger.

Jack Harkness had to admit to a certain level of satisfaction when, just as his burst hit, the entity screamed.


	15. Chapter 14

_Chapter Fourteen: Bad Pennies _

It was the sudden silence that was the first indication that something almost fundamental had changed within the Doctor's mind. The evil presence of the Intellivore was gone. "That," one of the Doctors said in a rather aggrieved tone, "Was almost anticlimactic."

"Have any other complaints? Perhaps you'd like to invite it back? Fourteenth time's the charm?" Another Doctor suggested, shooting the first speaker a glare.

"Oh shut up, both of you," Rose's Doctor snapped, "Rose?" he asked in a much gentler tone, "Are you alright?"

"Oh, fantastic," she replied and was rather shocked to notice that all thirteen of the Doctors were staring at her with rather bemused expressions upon their collective faces. "What?"

The Doctor grinned, "I believe it's time we get out of here, Rose, and back to the real world."

The real world. Her expression fell as she suddenly recognized what that would mean. They would return to the way things were – before she knew that he loved her. Admittedly, her Doctor had never said those words but she felt them all the same. She wasn't certain if she truly wanted to return to a world of love that would remain unrequited because of fear. She tugged on a strand of blonde hair and sighed.

He did not miss a single nuance of the feelings that crossed her rather expressive face. There were plenty of times that he had despaired of ever understanding her, though at this moment in time he suspected that he knew precisely what she was thinking. A hand rested on his shoulder and he turned to face his seventh self.

"Tell her," the Seventh Doctor insisted, his blue eyes surprisingly fierce despite his otherwise almost comical appearance.

"Tell her what?"

"Oh don't be dense," he snapped, "You know precisely what I'm talking about. Or do I have to paint you a picture?"

"Oh. Thank you, Rose...Oi!" The Doctor's words were cut short as he was suddenly rapped with the side of the Seventh Doctor's umbrella.

"Tell her how you _feel_," Seven emphasized each word with his rolling Scottish accent.

"You're not supposed to hit me, that hurt!" He rubbed his shoulder and winced. Seeking, and not finding, sympathy in his previous self's eyes the Doctor sighed. "Right then," he said, suddenly feeling as if he were about to fight a nightmarish combination of the Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans, and Jackie Tyler at the same time. He shifted his feet in an unconscious reflection of his nervousness even as his eyes looked everywhere but at Rose.

"Doctor, you...you don't have to say anything," Rose said hesitantly, "The Professor means well, but you don't have to listen to him. We should get back to the real world." If she placed a rather bitter emphasis on the last two words she did not notice.

"Rod and sash," he cursed quietly, somehow finding the courage to continue, "Rose, I lo..."

She could feel herself leaning forward in anticipation of his words. While the Seventh Doctor had already told them to her, this was what she had been dreaming about all along. However, before he finished she felt a sudden tug at her mind – as if someone had grabbed her sleeve and yanked it. "Wha'?" she asked, but before she complete her own question she felt herself being ripped away from the Doctor's mind. "Doctor!" she shouted as she began to fade.

The Doctor's voice was thunderous as he, and all of his incarnations, shouted, "ROSE!"

-----

A thought tickled the edge of her mind as she slowly regained consciousness. She had been doing something important or was being told something that would change her life. However, she was having a hard time concentrating. She felt as if her thoughts were wrapped in heavy cotton – each one was fuzzy and indistinct. "Ow," she stated ingeniously, even as she opened her eyes to a dazzling white world.

"What?" Rose asked, sitting up quickly. Her stomach rebelled at the movement and she squeezed her eyes shut until the nausea passed.

A low laugh answered her question. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. It was a laugh that reminded her of the scrapping of wind tossed autumn leaves across pavement and suddenly she remembered.

"Doctor!" she shouted, opening her eyes again to find herself apparently alone upon the white landscape.

"He can't hear you, Rose," the Soul Eater said, the laughter still in its voice, "You are mine."

"No," Rose stated firmly, "I am not yours. I will never _be_ yours. You can't have me."

"You," it said, "have no choice in the matter."

"Of course I do," she replied, forcing herself to her feet, "There's always a choice. And my choice is 'no.'"

"No?"

"No," she repeated, "No, you can't have me. No, you can't have the Doctor. No, you can't have Jack. No, you can't have this universe. You," she said, with a cheeky grin that was reminiscent of the Doctor's, "Can just go back to the Pit you came from. You are defeated. So, go away."

The entity growled, "Who are you to defy me!"

"Rose Tyler," Rose introduced herself with a sudden grin, "Hello!" Despite the three years they had been apart, the changes wrought within her from her time at the Doctor's side were never more evident than when she was confronted with danger.

Intellivore roared.


	16. Chapter 15

_Chapter Fifteen: Confrontations_

'Mental note: Making an Ancient Entity with devilish powers angry is never a good idea unless your name is the Doctor,' Rose thought grimly as she fought to maintain her standing position as the entire mindscape shuddered with the force of Intellivore's roar. "That all you've got?" she asked automatically, before mentally kicking herself for her own daring. 

"You are nothing!" It cried, "You are food! You do not matter!"

The Doctor's words came back to her: _Did I ever tell you about one of my favorite things about dreams, Rose? I know how to control them._ This, she realized, was her own mind – not some construct of the Soul Eater's. This was its ploy into making her give in to its desire to feed. Little did it know just how stubborn Jackie Tyler's daughter could be.

"Then why are you still arguing?" she asked, "Feeling lonely?" 

It roared in inarticulate rage.

"That must be it," Rose said, "Why else wouldn't you just accept that you've _lost_? It's over. Go away."

"Not," Intellivore whispered into her ear as a simulacrum of a hand touched her face in a grotesque parody of a lover's caress, "Without tasting you first, Rose Tyler."

She stiffened reflexively in response.

-------  
Hyperdrive Section

Jack patted Bettie fondly as he regarded the still smoldering tentacles of the entity. "I love this gun," he grinned. A movement from some of the tendrils near Rose and the Doctor caught his attention. Aiming again, he fired. "Sorry, but they're off limits."

"ROSE!" The Doctor's eyes snapped open and he all but collapsed as his knees refused to support his weight after being stiffened for so long. 

Jack fired another warning shot into the writhing mass of the entity before he moved to the Doctor's side to offer a supporting hand.

"Doctor?" he asked, putting as many questions as possible into his name. First and foremost amongst them was, of course, 'what the hell is going on? And what the hell is _that_?'

"Rose!" The Doctor repeated before he recognized that Jack was there with him. This, he decided, was one of the many things that he hated about being forced out of a telepathic communion – he generally had a hard time forcing his thoughts into some semblance of order afterward. "Jack?"

The former Time Agent could count on one hand the things that frightened him. Number one, since meeting the Time Lord and Rose, was seeing the Doctor in the state that he was in now. "Yes, Doctor, I'm here."

"Jack, it's got Rose. It took her..." 

"She's right here," Jack replied, gesturing towards the far too still Rose Tyler. Rose's hand was frozen, still outstretched towards the Doctor – her expression one of pure terror. "But she won't respond."

"That's because it's got her. I've got to get her back."

"What's got her? Doctor, what's going on?" Jack asked. One of the tendrils twitched towards the three of them and Jack decided to force his frustration upon the only source he could – he shot the creature again.

"The Soul Eater. I don't have time to explain anymore, Jack. I need to touch her, before I lose her."

Jack's expression must have betrayed his confusion, but the Doctor ignored it in favor of touching Rose's hand.

The Doctor's eyes drifted shut as he attempted to re-establish their earlier telepathic connection. Each time he tried, he was shunted aside - as if someone was purposefully preventing him. 'No' - the word was suddenly seared into his mind and his eyes opened in sudden shock, "She's not letting me in. Jack, she thinks she can do this on her own!"

"Can she?"

The Doctor's eyes were haunted as he looked at Jack. "It took dozens of Time Lords to defeat the Soul Eater before. What chance does a little human ape have?" he asked in a bleak voice.

----

Rose pulled away from the Intellivore's touch. "No," she said, repeating her earlier vow, "You can't have me." She smiled as she felt the Doctor's attempt to reach her be brushed aside. This time, she would do the protecting. This time, it was her fight – not the Doctor's.

The entity laughed, "And how are you going to stop me?"

'I,' she admitted to herself, 'Have no idea.'


	17. Chapter 16

_Chapter Sixteen: When in Doubt..._

Inspiration struck with all of the drama of a lightening bolt. "This is my mind. _Mine_. Not yours. You are an invader here, and you're not welcome," Rose said, spinning to face the current appearance of the Intellivore. Around her, the stark white of her mindscape shifted. Colors, shapes, images, and even people appeared. "This is my mind. My thoughts. My dreams. My hopes. My desires. And they are far too powerful for you."

"You can't do this," it growled.

"Of course I can," she smiled, "This is my dream, Soul Eater, my world. I control it. So..." Rose stepped forward, pointing an accusing finger at the creature, "You can just LEAVE."

The ancient entity seemed to expand with its anger as it loomed over her. "There is no escape, Rose. There is only me left for you now. Give up this pointless fight, you are mine. Forever, Rose, forever..." Her mind was suddenly filled with temptations as it offered her the universe. She saw herself as a piece of the creature - forever hungry, forever powerful, and forever evil.

Rose stumbled as she placed a hand to her forehead. "No," she whispered as the Soul Eater attempted to force a compulsion upon her.

"Come to me, Rose Tyler."

"Forever," she repeated its earlier vow.

"Yes, forever," the creature held out a hand for hers.

Rose smiled, and the being wavered as it attempted to interpret the expression. "My forever, Soul Eater, belongs to one being in this universe."

"Me."

"No," she corrected, "It belongs to the Doctor." Standing amongst her own thoughts, dreams, and desires Rose felt empowered. By her admission of her love for the Doctor, she _was_ empowered. "GET OUT," she commanded.

With a startled look upon its face, the Intellivore disappeared.

----  
Hyperdrive Section

"She'll make it," Jack said, even though he suspected that the shred of doubt in his voice did not go unnoticed by the man – or, rather, Time Lord - he was trying to comfort.

The Doctor offered him an unconvinced smile, "I hope you're right, Jack."

"Have I ever lied to you?" he asked, and a moment later, he regretted that statement. Surely, at some point in their time together, he had said something that wasn't entirely truthful. Or maybe he could just call it a sin of omission. "Hey!" Jack scolded the entity as he fired another warning shot, "Stop getting cocky." The tendril that had been snaking closer during their conversation obligingly withdrew.

"It's getting bolder, even though some portion of it is trying to defeat Rose," the Doctor frowned slightly as he considered the entity before them, "Even if she defeats it mentally, it is still a threat. I'm not sure how to stop it."

"I might be able to help with that," Jack smiled as he pulled out a pale grey deodorant can.

"Is that...?"

"Nitro Nine," Jack nodded, "Never leave home without it – or some other sort of explosive – especially when you're dealing with the unknown. When in doubt, blow it up."

His lips quirked into a faint smile, "I'd agree with that. At least where the Soul Eater's concerned. Though we can't destroy it – and this ship – without Rose or the gwaila crystals."

"Wasn't planning on it," Jack replied, "Though, why don't you grab some of those crystals now? I'll keep an eye on our girl and our buddy over there."

The Doctor couldn't prevent the swell of anger he felt at labeling Rose 'our' girl. Where she was concerned, he wasn't in the mood to share. However, centuries of practice prevented Jack from noticing his emotional state as he nodded. "Let me know if anything changes," he ordered, though he referring more to Rose than to the Intellivore.

"You got it," he said as he shifted Bettie into a more comfortable position against his shoulder. The former Time Agent followed the Doctor with his eyes as the Time Lord made his way to one of the command and control consoles that lined the walls of the hyperdrive bay. He was worried – about Rose and about what losing her again might do to his friend. The last time Rose's departure had been the Doctor's foolish choice. This time, Rose might be leaving in a far more permanent manner. Unless one was a Time Lord, death tended to be rather final. Then again, he wasn't certain what losing Rose might do to _him_.

Jack sighed and glanced at Rose. She couldn't die, not like this. The former Time Agent's expression grew grim as he silently promised both Rose and himself that he wouldn't let it end this way. There was always a chance – the Doctor had taught him that much. He was startled out of his thoughts by an imagined movement – or so he thought. He focused his attention upon Rose's lips, for the moment ignoring the Intellivore. There. Another movement, almost as if she were silently trying to say something. Lip reading had been one of his best skills during his training as an agent and he put them to good use. However, 'get out' did not seem like something Rose would normally say. "Rose?" he questioned, moving closer to her.

Without warning, Rose's eyes flew open as she gasped out loud, "Doctor!"

"Rose! Welcome back!" Jack greeted her with a wide grin, not caring in the least that she had not called out for him.

"Jack?" she identified him quickly, her eyes darting about the room until she spotted the familiar leather clad form of her Doctor by one of the consoles, "What happened?"

"As far as I know, you just had a mental combat with our buddy over there, the Doctor's getting some gwaila crystals out of the consoles and I'm keeping the Soul Eater occupied with Bettie here," he patted his gun fondly as he explained.

"Bettie?" Rose asked curiously as she attempted to regain her bearings after her 'fight.'

"Named after Bettie Page, lovely girl, you'd like her," Jack grinned.

"Right," if she sounded rather unconvinced, Jack forgave her.

"Rose," the Doctor's voice interrupted their conversation, and she smiled as she turned to face him. Rose could sense the words that he wanted to say – mostly about her being a silly little ape who could've been killed amongst other, far more important things – but he thankfully restrained himself.

"Got them?" Jack asked, knowing and yet not asking about the apparent change in his friends' relationship.

"Right here," the Time Lord patted his bulging pockets.

"Would thirty seconds do it?" Jack pulled the fuse out of one of his pockets and began to fix it to the Nitro canister. He hefted the deodorant can in his hand and grinned at his companions, "My turn."

"YOU CANNOT DEFEAT ME!" The Intellivore's voice rumbled through the room.

"Just watch me," Jack snapped as he tossed the canister into the writhing mass of the entity.

"RUN!" the Doctor commanded, and the three bolted for the door.

Behind the rapidly retreating time travelers, the Soul Eater screamed in inarticulate rage. A moment later, the entity was engulfed in flames.

* * *

_Author's Notes: Thanks to everyone for their wonderful reviews. I have to admit that they definitely are a wonderful pick-me-up for the day, and I'm truly glad that you are enjoying this story. There are two more chapters after this one, and then the story is finished. And not to worry, there is most definitely a good Nine/Rose resolution after everything that I've put them through :) - Gillian_


	18. Chapter 17

_Chapter Seventeen: Insurance_

The three time travelers collapsed onto the floor of the TARDIS control room in a fit of laughter, or, rather, two of them were laughing and one was ignoring them in favor of fishing through his pockets for the gwaila crystals. Despite the years between them, it was strange to consider how easily they fell back into the roles that had so well suited them. Rose leaned into Jack, her relieved laughter echoing through the still darkened TARDIS, "Ever notice that most of our adventures end up with us running for our lives?"

"Look at it this way," Jack grinned, "It helps me keep my girlish figure."

"You have a girlish figure?" the Doctor asked with a noticeable grin in his voice as he headed for the main console, a gwaila crystal in hand.

"I'd be happy to show you," Jack teased.

"Of that, I have no doubt," the Doctor replied, his voice muffled by the console as he worked underneath it, "Jack, what happened to the torch? My sonic screwdriver isn't casting enough light on this."

"The batteries died."

"How can the batteries die? It was an everlasting torch!" he groused.

"You need to get your money back," Jack advised.

"Jack, go get another torch. There should be one in the cabinet next to the coat rack in the secondary console room."

"You want me to stumble around in the dark, looking for a torch, which happens to be on the other side of the ship?" he asked incredulously, before grinning, "Gee, Doctor, if you two wanted to be alone you just had to ask. I promise I won't peak...Oomph!" All of Jack's breath whooshed from his lungs as Rose elbowed him in the stomach.

"Jack?" the Doctor asked again, putting as much warning as possible within the former Time Agent's name.

"Promises, promises," Jack smiled, standing, "Have fun you two, and please...do who...or whatever you want to. Really."

"Jack!" Rose exclaimed, but Captain Harkness was already gone.

Silence descended upon the console room as Rose leaned against one of the pillars and the Doctor continued to work. The silence was broken intermittently by either a muffled curse or the clatter of some tool hitting the floor. She began to feel somewhat anxious to leave the Talween, and the events that had occurred upon the ghost ship, far behind her – yet she had to know. Was it truly over? Was the Soul Eater gone? Despite the teasing banter between her friends, despite even Jack's devil-may-care attitude, she was worried. Could it all truly be that simple? Add one explosion, two mental fights, stir thoroughly and voila! - recipe for the death of one evil entity. Surely not. Finally, she could stand the unanswered questions no longer, "Doctor? Did the explosion kill the Intellivore?"

The clatter under the console paused for a moment, before continuing. "Evil never truly dies, Rose," the Doctor said, his voice echoing strangely, "Despite how many times we defeat it. It will be back – in the shape of another Davros, the Slitheen, the Editor, or any one of the various villains we've faced over the years. The best we can hope for is to delay it for a while."

"I tried that, you know," she replied thoughtfully, "Fighting evil, defeating the bad guy, saving the world. Each time I thought it was over, each time that I thought I had won, some other petty crook would pop up and ruin it all over again. Wasn't the same, though. Not without you and Jack. I just want to know that this time, this time we made a difference. This time we defeated the Intellivore and it won't be back ever again."

"There's a rucksack by the door," the Doctor seemed to change the subject, "Open it."

Rose was certain that the rucksack had not been there before – or she, Jack or the Doctor would have stumbled over it on their way inside the TARDIS. Squinting in the faint light, she opened the bag to find three grey deodorant cans inside. "Doctor, what are these?"

"Insurance," the Doctor said, "Or, at least, that's what Ace called them. It's Nitro Nine – an explosive. I'll have the dimensional stabilizer fixed shortly, and once it is – I want you to toss that lot into the Talween."

"Doctor?" she asked incredulously. 

"You're right, Rose. This time we will be sure," the Doctor's voice was determined, "It won't survive that blast. For once, this evil will die." As if his last vow were a signal, the lights came back on in the TARDIS.

"How do I set these?" Rose asked, for a moment relishing the idea of being certain that just this once – evil will die.

The Doctor explained how to set the timer, and she did so quickly. At the Doctor's command of 'NOW!' she opened the doors to the TARDIS and tossed the canisters down the far too clean hallway. Rose shut the doors behind her as the TARDIS emitted the familiar wheezing groan that indicated movement.

She never felt the explosion that rippled through the Talween. She never saw the flames engulf the remains of the Intellivore. She never saw the rapidly expanding cloud of particles that was all that remained of the ancient starship or the entity. However, she could easily imagine it.

"It's over?" she asked as the TARDIS traveled through the space-time vortex.

"It's over," he confirmed, "For now."


	19. Chapter 18

_Chapter Eighteen: Resolutions_

The Soul Eater was gone. It had dissipated into nothing more than its component atoms and the universe was a far safer place because of it. However, evil always leaves a mark. There is always an aftermath. There is always a moment wherein all of the events of life versus death must be acknowledged. There is always a moment where the fact and fiction of events must be disclosed.

That moment was now.

----

Rose Tyler idly ran the spoon around the edge of her tea cup, watching the swirl of the liquid with every appearance of being mesmerized. Her expression was blank as she regarded the steaming tea – as blank as her mind save for thoughts of the Intellivore and of him. If she closed her eyes, as she did every few minutes in an attempt to recapture what she had lost, she could almost hear the Professor's voice proclaiming that her Doctor loved her. She had admitted to the Intellivore that she loved the Doctor, but she was still sitting at the TARDIS' kitchen table alone. Days had passed since their confrontation, and later destruction of the Intellivore and still things remained unsaid between them. Rose rationalized that part of the reason why the Doctor had never completed what he had been about to tell her, just prior to the Soul Eater's taking her, was because of fear.

This was no longer the relative safety of the Doctor's mind – a place where he could, if he desired it, hide from the truth. This was real life. Her lips turned upwards into a bitter smile as she spoke those words out loud, "Real life." She certainly didn't fancy 'real life.' Real life had never known the Doctor, or at least a version of the Doctor, admitting his love for her. Rose took another sip of her tea and sighed. This, she suspected, would be one area where she would have to make the first move. "He's daft," she proclaimed, reaching across the table for a Jelly Baby from the sweets jar.

"I hope you're not talking about me," Jack grinned as he leaned against the doorway.

"Guess," she suggested, and was rather surprised at how bitter the word sounded.

Jack's expression grew serious as he crossed the room. Pulling out one of the chairs, swinging it around and straddling it so his chest was pressed against the back of it, Jack folded his arms across the top and looked at Rose, "Alright, talk."

"What?"

"Rose, I'm not blind. What's going on? You're moping in here and the Doctor's moping in the console room...it's almost as bad as the three months you were gone. So talk."

"The Doctor told me that he loved me," Rose said, but she held up her hand to forestall any exclamations of joy that Jack could utter, "Actually, _he_ wasn't the one who told me. One of his previous incarnations did. However, just before the Doctor could tell me himself I was grabbed by the Soul Eater and..."

"Nothing's happened since then," he finished for her. "You've been going about life like nothing's changed even though everything has." Jack smiled slightly as he looked at her thoughtfully, "You're both idiots, you know."

"What?" she asked, suddenly feeling like a broken record.

"Idiots. Complete idiots. I've half a mind to lock the two of you into a room and keep you there until everything's worked out again. Hell, I might as well just do it since it's obvious the two of you aren't going to do anything."

"Who says I'm not?" Rose asked defensively, taking a sip of tea to hide her nervousness.

"I haven't seen anything change around here, Rose. If you're going to do it, do it. Before I, or the TARDIS, take matters into our own hands," Jack said, and with that parting shot the former Time Agent left the kitchen.

He was right, she realized. She was as much to blame for the current status quo as the Doctor was. Rose was acting like a teenager, something which she had thought she had left behind three years ago. Her expression grew grim as she considered his words. There was only one choice, though it wasn't much of a choice at all. Downing the rest of her tea with a practiced flick of her wrist, Rose stood and headed for her bedroom. There was, to be truthful, only one way of doing this properly – and she had every intention of doing just that.

-----

A voice at the back of his mind, a voice that sounded suspiciously like his Seventh self, interrupted his tinkering, _You love her. So tell her. It's as simple as that._ He hit the TARDIS' console with a little more force than necessary and he patted it in mute apology. He had been avoiding Rose for the past few days, mostly, he acknowledged, because of fear. They had come far too close to losing one another again – he did not think he could, or would, be strong enough to survive without her.

_It is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all_, the Seventh Doctor's voice snapped.

"Rubbish," the Doctor said out loud.

_Piffle! You love her. You need her. And if you don't pull your head out of your..._ His inner voice was silenced due to the sudden electric change in the feel of the room. Though he did not see her with his eyes, he knew she was there simply by the tantalizing scent that was unmistakably hers that wafted through the air. For a moment, his body thrummed with the knowledge that she was near and he braced his hands against the console reflexively. That she could affect him so strongly, even though she had not said a word, both frightened and excited him. Mentally steeling himself, the Time Lord turned to face her...and felt his entire world drop from underneath him.

In the small part of his brain that could still think rationally, he wondered just where she had found the white men's dress shirt that she was wearing. In that same portion of his mind, he decided at that moment when he next regenerated that shirt was his. He found himself watching her movements like a drowning man reaching for the sun. She must have been aware of his scrutiny on some primal level, he thought, for she began to unbutton the top button of her blouse ever so slowly. The curve of her neck was visible as she leaned slightly backwards to open the button. She had not said a word, nor had he, but it was suddenly very, very warm in the control room.

"Rose?" he questioned in a hoarse whisper, meeting her eyes.

"Doctor," she greeted him with a tender smile, "I wanted to ask you something."

"Anything," the word was spoken without thought, more reaction only. He felt as if he was drowning in her soulful brown eyes and a good portion of him did not seem to care in the least.

"I don't want there to be secrets between us, Doctor. We need to tell each other the truth, the complete truth. Can you do that for me?" Rose's eyes were hooded, shading the naked emotions in her eyes from his questing gaze.

"Wha..." he stopped, licked his lips, and began again, "Yeah, alright."

"No secrets," she repeated her earlier words as she stepped closer to him. "So, Doctor, there is something that you need to know first."

The Doctor's body felt as if it were one single nerve attuned solely to her; her breath, her voice, her touch, her gaze. He nodded silently, encouraging her to continue without words.

Rose steeled herself as she continued, "I love you."

"You...what?" his eyes were wide as he looked at her, not daring to believe her.

"I love you," she repeated, taking another tantalizing step forward. One strand of blond hair brushed against the collar of her shirt and he restrained himself from reaching out to push it away.

"Oh Rose." Her name was a breath upon his lips and she could see within his eyes that a dangerous storm was brewing. Without needing any encouragement, the Doctor smiled, "Rose," he said again. This, he suddenly realized, had been inevitable from the first moment she had taken his hand. He was precisely where he belonged, and now, so was she. "I love you," the Time Lord finally voiced the words that had been interrupted once before and in a language he knew she could understand. While saying them out loud was a relief, he still worried that she might not be certain about this – about them.

She knew what he might ask, just as she knew his fears. Before he could voice them, she continued, "I'm older now, Doctor, and I know exactly what I want."

He swallowed nervously, his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat as he watched her move closer, "Do you?"

"You forget, I'm not the same twenty first century shop girl that first stepped through those doors," she gestured vaguely in their direction.

"What do you want, Rose?" he asked, having a difficult time concentrating on such a frivolous thing as words when she was so near.

"You," her lips curved into a tender smile, her voice low in her throat as she moved even closer than before until they were standing toe to toe, "Just you."

A low moan escaped his throat as he leaned downwards, his hands automatically tangling themselves in her golden hair. "Me?" he asked, and in that one word he asked her if she was certain.

"You," she confirmed, and she reached upwards to pull his head down to hers for their first kiss.

For the Doctor, time suddenly pulled to a standstill. His world, his entire being, had narrowed until all that existed for the Time Lord was Rose Tyler. He was lost in a kiss that was far more passionate, loving, worshipping, and stimulating than anything he had ever felt in 900 years of existence. It felt as if his body were one single nerve as fire spread through him from his lips. He moaned against her, finally finding his release in his hands as they roamed her body.

She pressed even tighter against him, almost as if she were attempting to join further with him until they were one. 'Too late,' he thought fondly as he released her from the kiss, his eyes dark with their mutual passion.

Rose smiled at him, a smile that was so brilliant that a mere camera could not capture its beauty. He ran his fingers through her hair before he pulled her into another embrace, trailing butterfly kisses along her neck. "I love you, Rose Tyler," he breathed the words into her ear and her entire body shuddered in reaction.

"Doctor..." Rose said, shuddering again as the Doctor found a particularly erogenous spot on her neck, "I...oh don't stop...I know where I want to go next."

"Oh?" he asked, not quite comprehending what she was saying in favor of trailing more kisses along her neck, shoulders, and face, "Where's that?"

"Bed."

The Doctor's eyes widened comically as he gaped at her, for a moment ceasing his previous movements, "Bed?" he repeated dumbly.

Rose laughed as she held out her hand, "Yes. Trust me?"

Without hesitation, he placed his hand within hers, "Always."

"Come on then," she said, tugging at his hand, "It's time for a new adventure."

With his customary manic grin, he followed her but not before voicing his opinion of the idea with one poignant word: "Fantastic!"

-----  
Somewhere in the Haunted Corridor  
Time Unknown

Time bled away. Days, months, years, they meant nothing to the fragments that had been scattered upon the solar winds. Destruction meant nothing to an entity that had been in existence since before the beginning. Indeed, someday it would return more powerful than ever. The mortals that lived in the mere space of a nanosecond as it regarded time would love, live, and die with none the wiser to its existence. But those that dared to venture through space needed to remember its presence. There might not always be man or alien or Time Lord.

But there would always be...

Intellivore.

FIN

* * *

_End Notes: When you work on something like Intellivore, even if it is for the 'second time,' it tends to grab you by the throat and shake you around for a bit before finally letting you go. This has been a labor of love for me, and I enjoyed every minute of it. Thanks to all of my readers, for your kind comments and for hanging on the metaphorical edges of your seats while you waited for me to post (or, in some cases, write) the next chapter. I hope you all enjoyed the ride - Gillian Taylor_


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